St. Cecilia and the Jazz Organ

November 22 is the feast day of St. Cecilia, patron of music, often depicted seated at an organ--the instrument she is believed to have invented almost 2,000 years ago, and played so beautifully an angel fell in love with her. As Dryden wrote:

"At length divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame."

While there are and have been any number of concert and church organists, we are thinking of jazz organists--Jimmy Smith, Brother Jack McDuff, Wild Bill Davidson, Richard "Groove" Holmes. Hands up, all who remember Richard "Groove" Holmes.

But our favorite, still, is Thomas "Fats" Waller, memorably captured at the keyboard of an HMV Compton pipe organ in London in 1939. Fats learned to play the organ at the church where his father was the pastor--Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church.

Later, he taught another young musician, a kid from Red Bank, New Jersey, to play St. Cecilia's creation. And, on a very few recordings, we can hear the kid from Red Bank--Count Basie--at the organ. We think St. Cecilia is loving it.